Can-- can I just say one thing about the-- the debate we need to have? This has become-- one of the problems for this debate is it’s become a values war. It’s perceived as urban versus rural... And frankly, it’s perceived as an attack on the lifestyle of rural people by urban people. And I admire Mayor Bloomberg enormously--there’s probably no politician I agree with more but it’s counterproductive to have him as the spokesperson for the gun law movement. There has to be more respect and more people frankly from rural and Red America who are-- who are participants in this.

It would be nice if all these people who keep talking about "the debate we need to have" would explain what's wrong with the debate we've been having all along-- aside from the fact that they haven't been winning it.

It isn't "perceived" as war on rural America by urban central controllers...it is one. Central planner thinkers live in centrally planned communities. They pass laws that control every minute detail of the publics life. Those of us that choose to be left alone with fewer central planners still live in rural areas...though I think its safe to say the central rulers are moving into our areas. They're the ones that move out into the country, black top their entire front yard, put up multiple yard lights and fence the compound... and don't understand why we're voting against a new strip mall with a grocery store for convenience. Hint: We're not out here if convenience is at the top of our list.

I heard Mr Bloomberg say some very ignorant things on that program this morning. They were ignorant and elitist about his experiences in life, which he apparently feels he is allowed to project onto the rest of us. I also heard the CT Gov say, "..if you have a gun in your home it will most likely be used on you or your family". That is a seriously inaccurate, flawed, factless statement and yet, its made with impunity with no challenge by the moderator.

Until those that have fixated on "guns" as the cause and not just a tool, do some serious soul searching about the culture they have been very active in creating over the past 40 yrs, there will be no resolution. The intellectual dishonesty of the anti gun culture extended beyond, requires cars outlawed to stop drunk driving and Mr Obama removed from office due his correlation to 5 major shooting incidents during his presidency. Its crappy logic, crappy science, and disingenous to insist on expanding every freedom to allow 1 offended person to change the majority while you insist on narrowing the 2nd ammend freedom.

And I admire Mayor Bloomberg enormously--there’s probably no politician I agree with more

I've always tried to give Brooks a break on the theory that his more ridiculous ideas are offered to establish in-group identity with his leftist readership, a requirement to write for the NYT. I was wrong. This is shocking to me. The most positive possible evaluation of Bloomberg is that his nannying distracts him enough that he doesn't do more damage. I'm second to none in my disdain for politicians of all types, but who could possibly conclude this buffoon is best in class?

One suspects that while Mr. Brooks is correct in his diagnosis that many of us non-urban rubes don't trust Mayor Bloomberg, the only non-urban voices he's interested in hearing are those who agree with the aformentioned Mayor McNanny.

That said, allow this non-urban rube to make a modest proposal. These angels-among-men who would propose to ban all modern firearms clearly believe that this would eliminate most gun violence, urban and rural. To believe otherwise, and yet come out publicly for such policies at this time would simply be usuing the blood of children for political purposes, and that would be ghoulish. So I would propose that any act to ban these awful weapons include a provision that, with the exception of the uniformed military, all other agencies, public and private, be bound by all applicable federal and state gun laws. That would include all police agencies (including SWAT teams), all federal agencies (including the Secret Service), and all privately licensed security (including any firms that do or will protect the likes of Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Murdoch).

Since these proposed laws would clearly eliminate any threat from automatic weapons other than those in possession of a foreign power, only the uniformed military needs to be armed against such a threat. Rural and urban police agencies, not to mention federal agencies, should easily be able to maintain the peace using old-fashioned wheel guns and 12-gauge shotguns, correct Mr. Brooks?

It’s perceived as urban versus rural... And frankly, it’s perceived as an attack on the lifestyle of rural people by urban people.

One of my favorite westerns is a comedy called Support Your Local Gunfighter. Hysterical. Lot of submerged sex jokes. Some cowboy would yell "fire in the hole!" and then an orgasm would shake the screen.

Anyway, one of the on-going gags in that movie is that James Garner is from New York City. So he doesn't have a gun. Very funny fish out of water western, one of my favorites.

I'd like to know if there is a factual and established correlation between violent video game violence and these mass shootings.

Right after Jared Loughner's killing spree, the media and the Hollywood/huffington post press insisted they knew that it was all Sarah Palin's fault. Even though there was not a drop of evidence that suggested that Jared visited her website. The media and the Hollywood /huffington post press also assured us that the word "target", as seen on Sarah Palin's web-site, was the word that pushed him over the edge.

It's not urban vs. rural, it those who tolerate and propagate violence toward others versus those who don't. Look at the Uniform Crime Report statistics, hell, even the recent ones released by Eric Holder, and look at the disparity between racial groups in certain age ranges as perpetrators of violent crime. This school shooting gathers all the attention because it is a large number of victims in one swoop. But what about the same number of victims spread over a week in Chicago, or ten days in Detroit or two weeks in Atlanta?

Bloomberg is one of the nastiest hypocrites out there: he wants to control what others eat, while he pigs out on what he tells them they can't have. He's surrounded by armed guards, while he's lecturing everyone else to 'call the police'. And"The mayor also takes along a police detail when he travels, flying two officers on his private plane and paying as much as $400 a night to put them up at a hotel near his house; the city pays their wages while they are there, as it does whether Mr. Bloomberg is New York or not. Guns are largely forbidden in Bermuda — even most police officers do not use them — but the mayor’s guards have special permission to carry weapons."http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/12/16/bloomberg-uses-tragedy-to-tell-the-99-how-to-live/#comment-442547

As a class of people, I'm certain that gun enthusiasts are no less (or more) intelligent, decent, and sane than bird watchers, stamp collectors, and orchard breeders. But it's fair to say that more shit can happen with a Glock than with a stamp album. If such people or their relatives go over to the dark side, the problems increase exponentially.....I'm supportive of 2nd amendment rights, but I do wish the true believers would acknowledge that there are problems associated with gun ownership. I think it's fair to say that gun ownership can inhibit crime, but it's also fair to say that gun ownership can have some monstrous unintended consequences. Is it absolutely essential that pistols be equipped with fast emptying chambers? Why does a woman train her mentally disturbed son in the use of firearms? Shouldn't the gun rights of not only schizophrenics but of those living in close proximity to them be restricted?

It’s perceived as urban versus rural... And frankly, it’s perceived as an attack on the lifestyle of rural people by urban people.

It's a perception because it's a reality.

From where I sit a big part of the problem is that too many people like Brooks live in an urban environment and simply will not make an effort to understand the rural life style. The notion that people might have to hunt to feed their families is as foreign to them as the swahili language.

So since the current frenzy is to outlaw guns, how about this?When you go to get your driver's license, you qualify to own a gun. If you don't take the test and qualify you can't buy a gun. Or if you fail you can't buy a gun. Tests are gun handling and involve the same level of education and testing a concealed weapons permit would entail. After you pass, you can buy any gun you want.Every 2 years you retake the exams. If you can't afford the test (if you're poor and black, say), then the government will spot you the cost.Same restrictions on criminals, insanity, etc.

It's difficult for some people to speak plainly and on principles. Instead, they need to employ euphemisms to diffuse their meaning. Bloomberg should have left the manipulation of perception to journalists or activists. They are well trained in this art. The politician is well suited for offering promises, which are incompatible with reality.

Here's a suggestion: Instead of control or regulation, perhaps he could call it planned? That seems to be emotionally appealing to men and women alike.

"Shouldn't the gun rights of not only schizophrenics but of those living in close proximity to them be restricted?"

They are. He was not allowed to have a gun, and was refused when he tried to get one. Mom paid for her mistake, but unfortunately, nobody was protecting the children from a guy with a gun that he was regulated away from having, but had anyway.

The problem was gun control - it made sure that only the bad guy had the gun.

Is this the most revealing David Brooks quote...ever? First, he likes nurse Bloomberg more than anyone else. When do we get to stop calling him a 'conservative' who writes at the NYT?

Then he first says its been turned into a culture war of urban vs rural by basically lamenting the fact their isn't anyone in the knuckledraggerville who will take up Bloomberg's position. Really, we should respect the rural folks views on this issue, as long as they will learn to agree with us.

And the idea that this IS an urban vs rural issue is offensive in its own right. Its a city guy basically saying that the 2nd amendment is only revered by tobacco chewing hunters. The 2nd amendment is not about protecting hunters! Its not about protecting a rural way of life! Its about the right to bear arms in order to defend yourself against your fellow citizen OR your government. Its a right ALL Americans are born with. That is true whether you are in West Virginia or the upper West Side of Manhattan. Good grief. And Brooks is supposed to be someone who has policy gravitas?!?

People say things like, "The UK has lower gun violence than the US, and the UK has more gun control, so obviously we could lower gun violence in the US by increasing gun control in the US."

This is quite fully as stupid and unscientific as saying, "Mars has lower temperatures than Earth, and Mars has a much higher percentage of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere, so obviously we could lower Earth's temperature by increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere of Earth."

The US and UK are different, so to divine the effect of gun control, one needs to look at what happens when you vary the gun control in each place. Usefully, the natural experiment has been tried. In the last 15 years in the UK, the British have substantially tightened gun laws (especially on handguns), while the US loosened them (with the assault weapons ban expiring and CCW permits becoming ever easier to get).

The results? Gun violence in the UK has doubled, while gun violence in the US has gone down a third.

That is what scientists call a positive correlation between gun control and gun violence. To respond to gun violence with calls for gun control is as fully ignorant, stupid, and unscientific as responding to global warming by calling for higher carbon dioxide emissions.

Bloomberg's talents are being wasted as mayor. We need to waste--sorry, invest!--trillions of dollars to figure out some way to interface Bloomberg's brain with the regulatory apparatus of the United States.

He could be like the hybrids in Battlestar Galactica. We'll just stick him in a tub of goo and let him spout gibberish as he regulates everything. The difference between that and the present-day is the tub of goo, obviously.

Pro-gun rights have been mostly quiet since a gunman walked into a Connecticut elementary school on Friday and shot 26 people, including children, and then himself. The NRA on Friday refused to comment on the shooting.

One exception? Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) told Fox News Sunday that he believed more guns are the answer to violence in schools.

"I wish to god she had had an M4 in her office," he said of Sandy Hook Elementary School principal Dawn Hochsprung, who was killed in the shooting."

Silence is golden for cons. Except for Louie and Huckabee. Too bad Falwell is no longer w/us.

The Brady Campaign America's principal anti-gun group had the Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, IN Paul Helmke as its chair from '06-11 to no discernible advantage. So again Brooks' advice seems wrong. Helmke went on to lose all the rest of his attempts at higher office afterward too. Go figure?

"I'm supportive of 2nd amendment rights, but I do wish the true believers would acknowledge that there are problems associated with gun ownership."

You see, William, this is where 50 years of liberal chickens telling lies comes home to roost. We don't trust Leftists to propose an honest compromise, and we don't trust Leftists to stick to the bargain. We know that it will simply be a hudna, the false truce Islam uses until they are strong enough to do what they want with infidels, which is enslave and kill us. There can't be a compromise because of the distrust the Left has so thoroughly earned.

Oh, and Shiloh, my response to William provides all the reason any conservative needs to stay away from any Leftist "news" show.

We already know that anything you say in advance will be a lie, that you will use our presence to falsely claim an honest debate, and that you will have no qualms about selective editing to place us in the worst possible light. Why give you any footage to work with?

One thought - as others have pointed out here, so many of those pushing for increased gun control have armed security. Bloomberg, of course, probably even when he wasn't mayor. Murdoch, for obvious reasons. A lot of the White House staff and cabinet officials. Hollywood stars. Even David Brock of Media Mutters, whose organization apparently got $400k from the Joyce Foundation specifically earmarked to promote a $600,000 initiative on "gun and public safety issues."

One of the things though that is often overlooked is that the move from revolvers to semi-automatic hand guns, and from shot guns to machine guns by the police was in response to being outgunned by criminal elements utilizing machine guns (such as fully automatic AK-47s, etc.) smuggled into this country, primarily from, or at least through, Mexico. Most notable was the video tape of the shoot out between LAPD officers and two bank robbers wielding fully automatic (and, hence, very illegal) AK type assault rifles (and, yes, that was redundant, since, by legal definition, an "assault rifle" is capable of shotting more than one bullet or shell with a single pull of the trigger). And, when the police across the nation went to semi-automatic pistols, so did the general public. And, one of the reasons for all this is that the technology incorporated into semi-automatic hand guns has gotten quite a bit better in recent years, greatly increasing their reliability.

I don't see it really as an urban versus rural divide, but rather, communitarian or collective versus individualistic divide. The urban versus rural just seems to correlate fairly well to that philosophical divide. The communitarian is willing to sacrifice his own freedom for the supposed benefit of the community, and, hence, is willing to trust his safety to the police. The individualistic person though is not, and figures that the person most worried, and often best placed, to see to his own security, and that of his loved ones, is himself. And, that, in a final analysis, it is his ultimate responsibility.

So, how can Bloomberg, Murdoch, et al. reconcile their armed protection with their desire to prohibit most everyone else from defending themselves? Easily. The community needs leaders, and these people are, coincidentally, their leaders. Everyone is equal in a socialist society, but some are much more equal, and that was why the Soviet leadership had dachas on the Black Sea and their own stores, that some how always had full shelves.

Of course, on the right, this is seen as the rankest of hypocrisy, with Mayor Bloomberg happily denying most of the residents of his fair city the ability to protect themselves from the predators and others intending violence, while he, as their duly elected leader is special, and therefore deserving of extra protection. And, his friends and acquittances are also special, so they, or their armed security, can get the requisite gun permits. The funny thing though about that sort of society is that the more someone needs a gun for protection, because of where they live and/or work, the less likely they are to be able to own one legally, and, thus, the more they have to depend on the police for protection - the same police who rarely go into some of the worst neighborhoods, except in force.